The Hero
by Breenagh
Summary: She was born from murder, a sadistic vampire who wanted to pass on his genetics. When she's all grown up, she dedicates her life to saving the weaker, unfortunate people. Her travels eventually bring her to Forks, Washington where she collides with wolves and vampires.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is my new story, something that just kind of needed to be written. I don't know how long it will be, it could be short - unlike my other story, About Eden, which will definitely be like a serial thing with new chapters at least once a week until it's all dried up. This on the other hand is most likely just going to be a one-off, sweet story that ends neatly. Hope you guys enjoy it. xo, Breenagh.

The Buddhist monks like to say that all life is precious. Actually, that seems to be the basis of most religions these days.

 _Thou shalt not kill._

But if you look beneath the surface principle that all life has value, is here for a reason, lift the metaphorical carpet and look at the underbelly of society, your opinion may shift.

Basically, if you've seen some shit, you'll know some people don't deserve to walk the earth.

At a point in time, for some reason, my mother was chosen. Maybe it was the way her hair fell, or the way she smelled or just because she was there. Looking back, it doesn't matter. Some creature of the night set his eyes on her and from that moment on my fate was chosen.

So, she was followed. And taken. And she was ruined by a man with only evil in his heart. She was his experiment, and from that I was born. She was the first person I killed, through my birth, ripping her beautiful broken body to pieces. He didn't care, she was used up. He raised me, telling me stories of vampires and people and how they stopped getting along so now we were in charge, we were Kings, but there were rules.

When I became an adult seven years after my birth, a young woman, I struck out on my own. I promised him I'd be gone a month and that I'd come back but I never did. I had read too many books, thought too many thoughts. This was not the life we were supposed to lead, killing the innocent for their blood.

It doesn't matter anymore about those first few years of confused stumbling through the countryside. That's all in the past. Through those years I learned a few things.

First and foremost, I was stronger than any human. You had to be careful with them - I was only half vampire, half marble, but I could crush a man's skull in between my hands.

Secondly, I had a power. From looking at any one person, I could tell their intentions. Just good or bad, their target, motivation. Call it a gut feeling.

Thirdly, people were scum. On a late-night wander, I heard a scream coming from a nearby rural house. Something about the scream pulled me forward - it wasn't an angry scream or a startled scream. It was one full of fear, from someone who was surely dying, one last call out to whatever turned the Universe.

Something led me inside the house. It was easy, I just jumped on top of the shed and propelled myself through the window. A lanky, disheveled man was standing over a woman. She was on her knees, backed against the wall, crying. In the millisecond it took me to stand up, I noticed the myriad of bruises on her arms and neck.

Some obviously faded, some fresh, and tantalizing blood dripped from her split lip. I tore my eyes away, forced them to turn on the man. He was waving a broken beer bottle, turning to me with the rancid liquid dripping from his whiskery chin.

"What the fu-" he began. It was too late for him. I'd already seen. Her intentions were to protect the child under the bed in the other room - their child. His intentions were to hurt her until she was submissive, beat her until she was unresponsive, assert his pathetic dominance over one thing on this earth.

And he felt no guilt.

Before he could even finish, my hands were around his throat and he was dangling in the air.

"Oh my god," the wife sobbed. I turned to her while he sputtered, frantically scratching at my arms with no luck.

"What's your name?" I asked her. She stood, creating distance from her and the man.

"S-Sandra," she said. "Please, my son…"

"Your son's name?"

"Brett."

"Go to Brett. Tell him it's going to be okay and this man will never hurt either of you again. Okay, Sandra? And you don't have to worry any more. Nobody is going to find him. Not when I'm done. Go now and don't tell anyone about this. They won't believe you."

The woman nodded. She ran from the room, pulling the door shut behind her. I kept the man in a chokehold, dragging him out the window.

Just because I wanted to be a hero didn't mean I wasn't subject to temptation. The fresh blood glittering on her lip was excruciatingly lovely. So I took my meal to go, bringing the awful man deep into the woods.

And I was right. Nobody ever found the body.

From that night on, I chose to be the hero. I took what fate gave me, pulled a new identity out of what I was born from - murder. I avenged my mother's life with every monster killed.

I hunted the evil. I protected the weak and the abused and the lost.

The names of the ones that stuck with me, I wrote in one of my only possessions, a leather journal I'd found while running. Sandra and Brett were the first. Then there was Dolly. Abel. Yvonne. Josef. Alex. Tanesha. Willow.

Some of them went unnamed, the ones who didn't know they'd been saved. Sometimes I kept it that way. Didn't make contact, kept a distance, it was easier that way, but sometimes I learned their names. I met them. I got to see the look in their eyes when I promised it was going to be okay. I kept their addresses, kept small tabs on them, would track them down sometimes.

Brett grew up fast. I was in the background at his high school gradation. Sandra, a little greyed but still lovely, was in the front row. Cheering. Screaming. Tears in her eyes.

Then again I was at his college graduation. It seemed like no time had gone by. Sandra was there, more stooped than the last time I saw her. But there was still endless strength and power in those green eyes.

Sandra's death hit me hard - one of the reasons I stopped connecting with the people I saved. Humans died so fast. Here one moment, gone the next. She was just sitting at home, reading, and had a stroke.

I came back one last time, when Brett's daughter was born. He had a good job, a wife who was witty and cute as a button. I walked briskly through the halls of the hospital and came to the maternity ward. In that room where you look at the babies, I spotted her immediately.

Sandy. She lay sleeping, mouth gently open, eyes squeezed shut in that focused-newborn way. Brett stood against the glass, shining eyes for only his daughter.

"She's a dream," I told him, leaning against the glass too. "Your one. She's a real dream."

"Right?" he smiled. "She looks like her mom."

I looked at the baby again. She'd abandoned sleep and watched the roof curiously.

"Aye, I don't doubt she does. But she's got your mother's eyes," I said, without really thinking about it. Brett snapped his head towards me.

"You knew my mother?"

"July seventeenth," I said quietly. "Nineteen eighty nine."

He stared blankly at me. "The day my dad disappeared."

I just looked at him, letting him draw whatever conclusion he wished. It took a minute.

"You were there. But you couldn't have been. You're too young."

"Not as young as I look," I corrected. "And I kept my word. I took care of your dad. Your mom kept hers, too. She didn't tell a soul."

"Except me. She said an angel found her - a guardian angel. You saved us," he said, nodding along. "It was true. I always suspected she murdered him, especially when the police came around. But there was never any evidence, the case went cold."

"You could say that," I said, smiling. "Guardian angel. I like that."

"You were at my graduation, weren't you? She saw you. I didn't believe her. She was getting old, then…"

"I was at all of your graduations," I told him. "I'm so proud of you, Brett. And Sandra too, man, she held on and she did so good. But this is the last time… I'm not supposed to be here. Especially I can't be seen. So this is the last one. Congratulations, by the way, on your daughter. Goodbye, Brett Miller."

"Wait," he said, when I was almost out the door. "You're not worried about me telling people?"

I turned back, looked at the man for one last time. "Nobody will believe you."


	2. Chapter 2

My travels took me across America, and that's when I found Seattle. Something drew me into the city, the constant light, the constant sound. Horrible things lurked in alleyways. Just walking into a bar was nearly excruciating. If I saved one person I let another five go.

I found myself in the dead of night sitting on the balcony of an empty apartment, watching over the lights. Some lights went out while others turned on. People put the oddest things on their balconies. Laundry lines, flags, potted plants, hammocks, string lights. It was a beautiful sort of mess.

Until I heard a crash come from below. In an apartment maybe a few floors down, there was a struggle. The person inside was afraid, trying to get away. Nails on polished hardwood. Being dragged. Denim on wood - trying to crawl away. I slipped off the edge of the stone railing, letting myself freefall for a few moments.

At the source of the sound, I just reached out and hung from the railing. It was quiet, efficient, no one would even know.

Through the sliding glass door, I saw a tall, pale figure wrestling down a man. He was trying to get away. The tall man kicked him in the rib, sending his victim across the floor. An open window sat to the side of the door. I edged closer - dangling off the bottom of the rail like this was risky business - and inhaled.

The intent of the pale man was to kill the man on the floor. What struck me as odd was that they were strangers to one another. Yet a lust for one man's death drove the other man. And then I caught the undercurrents - vampire versus human. I couldn't smell the sickly sweet, like dying roses, scent of vampire until the wind changed. With that, I had to choose.

It was the natural rotation of life that I'd been brought up with. Vampire killed human, as we were kings, and that's how we ate. It was like humans killing cattle. You had to turn away and let it happen. If I directed this vampire off his meal, he'd likely kill me out of anger and wind up murdering more humans.

Or I could reason with him. Turn him to the lifestyle of hunting down the worst of the crop, taking them out of the gene pool. Guilt free meals.

My choice was made. I lithely swung my legs into the open air, spiraling over the railing. I only landed with a dull thud but of course the vampire heard me. His face turned to me in the dark apartment, peering through the glass, crouched over his target.

I simply stood on the balcony, the wind rustling my long, black hair. I stared at the vampire, calling him forward with my eyes. He was intrigued, slinking forward. The human gasped and tried to crawl away. The vampire, not even looking, delivered a swift kick to the head. He fell unconscious.

The vampire slid the glass door open and gestured me inside, as if this were his home and I were his guest. He inhaled as I entered, not turning my back to him for one second. He closed the door again gently as though the breeze would bother any of us in the apartment lit only by the purple haze of the city lights beyond.

"Well… Aren't you quite the specimen," he commented, inhaling again. "Vampire girl, and yet, distinctly human."

"Hmm," I said noncommittally. "I was passing through and I can't help but notice you're killing this man."

The vampire seemed surprised. His thick, dark eyebrows arched dramatically. "And?"

"You see, I… I make a point to only kill the bad ones," I explained to him. "The murderers, the villains. Those ones. And I'm sure becoming like this wasn't your choice, but you don't have to be bad. You can be good."

He stared at me for a long moment before bursting into laughter. "You what?"

"S-Save lives," I whispered. He continued laughing.

"Oh, you are quite weird. You certainly are," he sobered. "I heard stories of a half-one like you. Almost an immortal child, but you grew, didn't you? But you're not the one they talked about. She has red hair… And she isn't Asian."

"A half-one? Where?" I asked. I'd come across other vampires, even friends of my father, but none like me. I thought I was an experiment, the only one.

"Humm, yes. In Forks, Washington. Unfortunately you're not going to meet her," he sighed. "You've interrupted my meal and I'm afraid I'm quite cross now. Quite frankly your existence is an abomination and the world will be better off without such."

I ducked just as his arm snaked out to grab my throat. There was no way I could fight him off… But I was strong. I lashed out and kicked the middle of his chest. He dipped backwards, more in shock than anything else. It was a deadly dance from that moment onward.

"You're quite small, yet deceptively lethal," the man grinned from the top of the marble counter where he'd been flung. Deep tracks in the thick stone were left by his fingers. Unfortunately the TV was ruined, as was the couch and most things in the apartment.

I growled and threw everything I had at him. His strong hands wrapped around my waist and he lifted me like you would a child - and then I was flying. The glass shattered, rained down. I sailed in a beautiful arc over the stone balcony, and suddenly there was no up or down or even sideways. There was just wind and the haunting emptiness of the air. The city lights continued to twinkle, the humans stayed sleeping where vampires didn't lurk.

Surely, I thought, I'll die. I can withstand a lot but surely falling thirty stories is enough to kill me. Isn't it? Pondering your death is so sad when you can think a million miles an hour, and yet there's nothing to ponder on your way down. There was no one who loved me or would miss me.

I sighed, resigned, allowing the city to swallow me.

Well, it was a particularly spongy bush that swallowed me and it hurt. I laid in the middle of the bush, cuddled by foliage, for several minutes. Nothing broken, nothing bruised, but it did hurt.

After a while I realized the vampire from before was probably on his way to come clean up the mess - before the authorities found me and realized I wasn't human. That broke the rules. I leapt from the bush and began running down the empty street, lit by eerie green streetlights.

As I wandered through a parking garage, I began to wonder where to go.

And then I pulled the torn, stained map from my back pocket and placed my finger on Forks, Washington.


	3. Chapter 3

_January 12th, 2017_

Hi, everyone.

This is a notice to let you all know I'm going on a _temporary_ hiatus. There was recently an issue in my family and I'll be flying out to Australia for three weeks. Unfortunately I most likely will not be bringing my laptop with me. If I do, I'll try to update the story often as possible but it may just not work out.

I'll only be gone for three weeks maximum and I'm bringing a notebook with me to continue all three of my stories (About Eden, The Hero, and Ocean's Call) so when I get back, there'll be a flood of new content for everyone! Yay!

I haven't, and won't, abandon any of my stories. So don't worry. I just won't have access to publishing/writing them for a little while. Thank you all very much for your kind words and support. I appreciate everyone who's been in my inbox or in the reviews. You guys are the best.

I've got some stuff I can probably upload in the week or so before I leave, so, I'll remind you all once more when the hiatus officially starts.

Lots and lots of love, Breenagh. xoxo.


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